As you may have seen, the White Water Gallery is doing a big donation campaign which includes on-site donations, mail-outs and crowd funding through indiegogo.com. They recently received $5000 from the Business for the Arts “ArtsVest” program towards this campaign rocketing them to more than 20% of their $25,000 goal. I am explaining this because North Bay Nipissing News is also a supporter of this campaign and has contributed by allowing me to publish updates on the campaign and has given White Water Gallery  some serious advertising. This also helped White Water Gallery secure the $5000 from ArtsVest as matching funds were needed as part of that program’s criteria. There have been thousands of dollars of in-kind support for this donation campaign but White Water Gallery is still securing money to cover the hard costs needed to run their youth program for the upcoming 2013-14 season.

White Water Gallery is not the only group working on education in the Nipissing District. The WKP Kennedy Gallery is North Bay’s public art gallery and they are running their “Scribbles & Brush Strokes Summer Art Camp”. Operating out of the Capitol Centre will give children a unique and fun way to make friends while experiencing a whole world of artistically stimulating events and activities. These week-long themed camps allow children the opportunity of experimenting with different artistic mediums while exploring new artistic ideas, playing games and going on arts field trips. Offering exciting and creative projects for children ages 6 to 11 years of age, these camps run Monday through Friday, 9am – 5:00pm with early drop-off and late pick-up available. Running throughout July and into August these summer camps are a creative way to engage your child this summer.

Education and youth engagement is common practice for public art galleries as many of them across Canada have this function embedded into their ongoing activities but why is the White Water Gallery running a youth program out of their contemporary art space? I know this question has been asked a lot and there are a ton of reasons for doing this work but here is the best one I can offer: these youth are at the verge of becoming emerging professional artists and they need guidance and encouragement. The White Water Gallery has a long history of serving artistic growth in all its forms as it promotes and disseminates contemporary messages and facilitates exhibitions, presentation and arts events of all forms. Working specifically with youth ages 14 – 21 is not the same as working with educating children. These young artists are growing into adults and looking for answers on where their artistic talents are going to take them in life. As this program developed organically over the past two years it has seen young artists bring their skills to higher levels while other artists have left high school and gone on to upper level education in a creative field related to their work with White Water Gallery. The program enables a lot of great community engagement as well including working on floats for holidays parades and presenting works at large scale events and festivals. This donation campaign was created to make this program a permanent fixture within the White Water Gallery’s ongoing activities and the funds raised will be leveraged against provincial and federal sources to make the program sustainable.

Every time someone brings in cash or a cheque to our gallery it gets us a little bit closer to reaching our goal. The Indiegogo campaign also helps for those who are tech savvy. Please make a donation today and help White Water Gallery make a difference in this community through youth arts engagement and education. For more information about the White Water Gallery and their upcoming Youth programming please visit: www.whitewatergallery.com/youth-arts-initiative For more information or to register your child for the Scribbles and Brush Strokes Art Camp please call the Capitol Centre Box Office at: (705) 474-4747 or visit them on Main St. in Downtown North Bay.